Farmers Body condemns MSP announcement, calls for nationwide protest

The Central government on Wednesday announced the MSP for 14 crops with an increase of 5 to 8 percent than the previous year but according to farmer leaders, it is a meager hike and less in comparison to rising input costs.

New Delhi: The All India Kisan Sabha, a farmers' body, has condemned the MSP announcement by the Modi government for the Kharif season 2022-23 and called for a nationwide protest against it. The Central government on Wednesday announced the MSP for 14 crops with an increase of 5 to 8 percent than the previous year but according to farmer leaders, it is a meager hike and less in comparison to rising input costs.

The MSP for rice, maize, tur, urad, and groundnut has been increased by 7 percent and for Bajra it has been increased by 8 percent. As per the government, the increase in MSP is in line with the Union Budget 2018-19 announcement of fixing the MSP at a level of at least 50 percent over the cost of production. However, the farmers' body said that the government has only announced the MSP on the A2+FL formula which does not include all input costs.

"These paltry increase in MSP has been made when the cost of production has increased sharply for farmers due to rising prices of fuel and other inputs. There has been a massive shortage and price rise in the supply of fertilizers. The government has made misleading claims about the return over cost of production promised through MSP. Instead of computing return over the total cost (C2), the return is computed over A2+FL cost which excludes the cost of farmer's own resources," said Hannan Mollah, General Secretary of All India Kisan Sabha.

AIKS has demanded that the government should implement the Swaminathan Commission formula of C2+50% to estimate the cost of production and ensure that farmers get a 50 percent return over that cost. "Government also needs to ensure public procurement of pulses, oilseeds, and millets so that farmers can be encouraged to grow more of these crops and India's dependency on imports for pulses and oilseeds can be reduced," said the farmer leader.

"As is well known, since there is no government procurement in most parts of the country, only a small fraction of farmers in India will be able to avail of the MSP declared by the government" he added.

The Farmers' Organisations are also irked over the delay in the formation of a committee to make MSP more effective for the farmers. The Prime Minister while announcing the repeal of three farm laws had said that a committee will soon be formed to make MSP more effective but farmer organizations are yet to receive any formal communication from the government side to date.

"They had called us and sought three names but it was just a conversation over the phone. We had written twice to the Union Agriculture Ministry and asked for more clarity on the formation of the committee but they are yet to respond to these letters. All this is being done just to show off and no implementation will be seen on the ground," said Hannan Mollah.